This was created using 3D Max 5 and animated using character studio. I get an odd flex effect on my character's chins when I start to animate them. Can someone tell me how to stop that? Don't hold anything back. I've been around long enough that my skin is pretty thick. I know that proportionally, it's not that close.

For the hell of it, I'm going to link the other 3D work I have to show. All this together should give you a sense of where I am so far, so anything any of you can say that will be useful would be greatly appreciated.

Sorry for not reading the rules more closely. I would like critiques on the modeling, animation, and any texturing notes you might be able to glean from what you see. Pretty much the whole shebang.

Shaykai

08 August 2003, 12:18 AM

Looks sweet! I haven't downloaded the animations yet since i'm on a 56k, but the still looks promising. I don't really have anything to critique without seeing the animation.

Shaykai

amo_77

08 August 2003, 02:24 AM

Love the character. It's great that he's light and clean... you can animate him without much lag.

I'm not sure of the solution to the jaw/chin flex issue. It looks as though it's timed with the hands. Is there an influence overlap of some sort (sorry, I'm a Maya junkie and therefore do not know the Max setup just yet). Regardless, I think you should push the offset of the hands just another frame or two and see how the results look. Right now the hands are "twinning" a bit, even though you've offset them slightly. The hands kinda drop down quickly after his steps and it leads me to think his body should have more up-down motion to convey weight. The hands might even work better if you add that.

I think the cycle is looking good, nonetheless. Again, I love the simplicity of the character. I'd like to see how well he moves in other actions.

Let's see more!

- A

dmcgrath

08 August 2003, 08:09 PM

Frankenstien's signature walk was more of a straight armed type thing. Pointing downward at a 45 degree angle. You have kind of a cat-like (or even wolfman like) hand and arm position.

I drew a quick pose of what I remember off the top of my head.

Even your drawing looks like it's just his fingers that are bent, and not his wrists.

Of course this is all opinion. And the truth to your animation and character is its pretty good. (Especially for only 24 hours completion time) You've seen the other comments about the jaw popping in time with the hands, so that is really all you need to improve.

Tabouh

08 August 2003, 01:04 AM

I doubt the hands are intefering with the head, I would say the neck is likely to the cause of this. Make sure all your vertices are BRIGHT green on your head (dark green means that they are assigned to more then 1 bone) and of course, make sure they are locked.

drewgilbert

08 August 2003, 02:14 PM

Thanks for everyone's comments so far. It's definitely the neck that is pulling that jaw around, not the hands. I talked with a friend who knows Max well, and he thinks it's a fairly common problem with the biped feature in character studio. His advice was to possibly get rid of the biped head entirely and put a bone there in it's place, attaching it to the neck. I'm going to give that a shot to see how that works. He also showed me a rendering feature that showed me once again how much more I need to learn, which makes those ugly verticies less noticable, and will improve the overall look immensely, like so:

http://www.drewgilbert.com/portfolionew/frankienew.jpg

dmcgrath, I agree with your overall notion that his arms were probably much straighter, though maybe not quite so much as your drawing shows, but that's really a vague notion I can't back up with any evidence, so I should really look into how that worked out. One thing I notices that throws the hands off, is that there really are no proper hands in the drawing. The fingers seem to just come right out of the stub of his arm. I'm going to see what I can do about fixing that.

Again, thanks everyone so far. This is good.

schmu_20mol

08 August 2003, 10:59 PM

when you render him with any kind of toon-shader / toon-rendering-option then you should definately check out if you can let the renderer draw outlines (better with varying thickness) because without them some things of the model are not noticable ...eg can you clearly tell me the exact outlines of his lower right arm + elbow are in that pic? see about what i'm talking ;) ...

perhaps some max user can hop in and tell him where he finds that option :beer:

Hexodam

08 August 2003, 05:11 PM

I reaaly like it, expecialy the cell shaded view, only crit is the texture in that view, its very smooth compared to the rough edges of the model itself

lostfilez

08 August 2003, 07:09 PM

I've had this problem before w/ character studio... when rotating the neck or head, the mesh of the head seems to twist from the chin upwards. All you need to do is set the vertices of the head to be rigid and not deformable. Hopefully that works for ya.

drewgilbert

08 August 2003, 07:47 PM

Lostfilez, that news is huge, and will help me immensely. My problem right now is that for the life of me, I can't figure out how to change the verticies. Do I do it at the sub-object level, or do I do it in physique mode?

Much better, in my humble opinion. I don't know what it is but I really like the way the head does that floating bob thing. Pretty cool work. Same with your model sheet. And under 1000 faces is a good challenge in itself.:thumbsup:

Manboy

08 August 2003, 09:44 AM

This work really does illustrate how incredibly useful (nay, vital) a background in traditional methods of drawing, sculpture or animation is when you're starting out in 3d. I've been lazily messing around with Max for the last three years and have not come up with anything this stylish. And elegant too, for that matter. You're getting good value out of those polygons.

That aside, a stiffer walk would be a bit more in-character for Frank here, I think. And if you're after an outline, you'll find the controls under the "Ink" section of the material you used (assuming you used Max's Ink'n'Paint material for the toon shading).

CGTalk Moderation

01 January 2006, 11:00 PM

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.

Follow Us On:

The CGSociety

The CGSociety is the most respected and accessible global organization for creative digital artists. The CGS supports artists at every level by offering a range of services to connect, inform, educate and promote digital artists worldwide. More about us on TheArtSociety.com